


If the Whiskers Fit

by raving_liberal



Series: Kids and Kids [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Babies, Drawing, Friendship, Happy Steve Bingo, M/M, Parenthood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-27
Updated: 2018-09-27
Packaged: 2019-07-18 06:59:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16113233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raving_liberal/pseuds/raving_liberal
Summary: Steve draws his family.





	If the Whiskers Fit

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Steve Bingo Prompt: Sketching
> 
> Beta-reading by the_ink_stained_knight

Steve propped the sketchbook on his knee, glancing over at Bucky, who held a sleeping Winnie in the crook of his metal arm, all bundled up in a soft woven blanket. The blanket was a gift from Olwethu, a member of the Dora Milaje who had become one of Bucky’s closest friends in Wakanda. Bucky had swaddled Winnie in the blanket within twenty minutes of her and Steve landing in Wakanda, and the poor kid had barely had her arms and legs free since. 

“You know you have to put her down at some point,” Steve said, for about the hundredth time in the past two weeks. He lightly sketched a few lines and circles in the book, not fully committed to the idea yet.

“Shh,” Bucky whispered dramatically. “Don’t say that in front of the baby.”

“I’m just saying that she needs to learn how to sleep without being held at some point,” Steve said, as though either of them would put that child down for anything short of an alien invasion.

Bucky glared at Steve and pointedly pulled Winnie closer to his chest. “You can’t spoil a baby, Steve.”

“Pretty sure you can, Buck.”

“Pretty sure we’ll find out, then, since I plan to keep on holding her while she sleeps.”

Steve sighed. “When she goes off to college and can’t fall asleep on her own, you can deal with her.”

“Fine,” Bucky said. “I _will_. Not like she’ll have to leave home to go to the Royal College of Wakanda.”

“She might want to go to Columbia,” Steve said. The lines and circles on his page started shaping themselves into the rough form of a seated man. He glanced up at Bucky, studying the position of his metal arm and how it bent at the elbow, then turned his attention back to the paper.

“It’s a shame you missed out on the Rolling Stones.”

“Hmm? Why’s that?”

“Because you could tell her _you can’t always get what you want_ ,” Bucky sang softly.

“You’re hilarious,” Steve said. Satisfied with the basic shapes, he began adding in some detail – the curve of Bucky’s flesh hand, the fall of his long hair over his forehead. Winnie was nothing but a perfect, rounded profile, but Steve carefully shaded in the blanket’s folds and patterns. Bucky was so proud of that blanket. Olwethu was from the border tribe, and her mother had woven the blanket herself, silky natural fibers shot through with cobweb-thin strands of vibranium. Steve suspected the thing would form a protective bubble if anyone so much as jostled Winnie while she was wrapped in it. 

“I’m a laugh a minute, so long as you don’t try to take my baby away,” Bucky said. He looked down at her with a soft smile on his face, all the tension from the preceding decades melted away.

“I wouldn’t ever,” Steve said. “Why would I ever take her anywhere you couldn’t go?”

“You’ll take her back to the States for visits,” Bucky pointed out.

“Only short ones, and I really think we’ll get your travel situation figured out soon,” Steve said.

“Hmm,” Bucky replied, not an argument, but not an agreement either.

“I can send letters and photos from Wakanda, you know. I don’t have to take Winnie to the States to hold up my end of the deal,” Steve said. He added the small, worried crease between Bucky’s eyebrows to the sketch. 

“What if they find out you’re shacking up with Interpol’s most wanted?” Bucky asked.

“They’re gonna have an awfully hard time trying to kidnap Captain America’s baby out of the sovereign nation of Wakanda, is all I’m saying,” Steve said. The corner of Bucky’s mouth quirked up into a smile, and Steve immediately put it into his sketch. There… now it was perfect.

Steve started closing the sketchbook, but Bucky stopped him with a, “What? I don’t get to see your pretty picture?”

“It’s a picture of you, Buck,” Steve said.

“Just me?”

“You and Winnie.”

Bucky grinned. “Then I know it’s the prettiest picture. Hand it over.”

Steve did as instructed, feeling the same jump of self-doubt in his stomach he felt anytime someone else looked at his drawings. _Drawings_ might have been too generous a term, even. They were more like doodles, really.

“This is great, Steve,” Bucky said in awe. 

“It’s nothing much,” Steve insisted.

“You got the sheen on the blanket. Olwethu’s gonna die when she sees it. She’ll want to show it to her mom.” Bucky’s eyes traveled over the sketch. “It’s real nice.”

“You think?” Steve asked.

“Of course I do,” Bucky said. “You oughta give it to her.”

“Olwethu’s mom?”

“No, dummy. Olwethu. She’d love it.”

Steve scratched the back of his head with his pencil. “I don’t know, Bucky. I don’t think she likes me much.”

“I told you the peppers in that stew weren’t a personal attack,” Bucky said. “They always make it like that.”

“She gives me this look sometimes,” Steve said.

“She’s protective, is all. She was Shuri’s personal guard the whole time Shuri was helping me out, so she saw me at my lowest, and it made her like me more,” Bucky said. Steve must have looked skeptical, because Bucky continued, “You remember old Mrs. Rosenbaum?”

“The lady from one floor up?”

“Yeah.”

Steve nodded.

“You remember how she used to leave food out for the stray cats?” Bucky asked.

“Yeah, I remember,” Steve said.

“And how she was always real strict about feeding them out on the fire escape only.” Bucky suddenly launched into a perfect replica of an old Brooklyn Yiddish accent. “‘If I start bringing one in’—”

“—‘then they’ll _all_ want in’,” Steve finished, laughing hard. “Who could forget?”

“But then that ratty-lookin’ old tom shows up.”

“With the mangled leg. Yeah.”

Buckey nodded. “Then suddenly the policy changes and _he_ can come and go from her apartment anytime he wants.”

“Buck,” Steve said with a smile, “are you telling me you’re Olwethu’s chewed-up cat?”

Bucky shrugged, jostling Winnie enough to make her let out a small noise of displeasure. “If the whiskers fit.”

“So you’re saying she misses her cat?” Steve asked.

“It’s possible she misses her cat,” Bucky admitted.

Steve’s smile widens. “Then we should get a frame for that drawing so that she can look at her favorite cat anytime she wants.”

“Wouldn’t hurt if we brought Winnie to visit, too.”

“I was thinking,” Steve said. “Winnie needs a godmother. You think Olwethu might be interested?”

“Are you prepared for our daughter to grow up to be Wakanda’s first blonde Dora?” Bucky asked.

“Hey, there’s worse careers, plus this one means she won’t need to go to Columbia,” Steve said. 

“I’ll call Olwethu up on the kimoyo beads as soon as Winnie-kins finishes her nap, then!”

“And I’m going to head over to the market to see about a picture frame.”

“That’s why this works, Steve,” Bucky said. “It’s the teamwork.”

“Are you kidding me?” Steve said. “I bought your love with a baby, and you know it.”

Bucky laughed. “To be fair, she’s a real cute baby.”


End file.
